A note on idealism and realism: for Housing Studies students

A note on idealism and realism: for Housing Studies students

 

In the context of studying Research Methods by Housing Studies students, highlight 4 main ideas on (1) idealism and (2) realism. Also clarify whether idealism and interpretivism are the same and whether realism and positivism are the same.

Idealism and realism are primarily ontological positions: they concern what kind of reality exists. They are not simply labels for qualitative versus quantitative methods, and neither maps perfectly onto interpretivism or positivism. In housing research, they help you decide whether you are studying housing as an external set of conditions, as socially constructed meanings, or—often most productively—both.

First, locate the concepts

Level of research philosophy	Core question	Examples relevant here
Ontology	What is the nature of reality?	Idealism, realism
Epistemology	What counts as knowledge, and how can we know it?	Objectivism, constructionism, subjectivism
Methodology / paradigm	How should inquiry be organised?	Positivism, interpretivism, critical realism, pragmatism
Methods	What techniques collect and analyse evidence?	Survey, census-data analysis, interview, observation, case study

A methodological choice should follow from—not be confused with—your assumptions about reality and knowledge. A research paradigm connects ontology, epistemology, methodology, and methods.

Idealism: four main ideas

In Research Methods, idealism normally means an ontological position that gives a central role to mind, consciousness, interpretation, and socially shared meaning in constituting the social world.

1.    Social reality is meaning-dependent.
A dwelling is physically present, but “home,” “overcrowding,” “security,” “neighbourhood quality,” or “housing success” do not carry a single self-evident meaning. Their meanings emerge through how residents, landlords, officials, and communities understand and use them. The idealist question is not only “What is housing?” but also “What does housing mean to people in this context?”

2.    There may be multiple realities or accounts.
The same public-rental estate can be experienced as stable and supportive by an elderly tenant, restrictive by a young adult seeking independence, and successful or problematic by a policymaker using administrative indicators. Idealism does not automatically say that any claim is equally persuasive; it says that lived meanings are plural, situated, and need interpretation.

3.    Language, culture, and history shape the phenomenon studied.
Categories such as “adequate housing,” “aspirational home ownership,” “waiting time,” “housing need,” and “community” are not neutral descriptions alone. They reflect cultural expectations, policy definitions, historical conditions, and social discourse. Researchers therefore attend to participants’ words, stories, symbols, and the local context in which meanings are made.

4.    Research aims to understand rather than merely measure.
Idealist-compatible research commonly asks exploratory “how” and “what does it mean” questions. It often uses in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, documents, and qualitative case studies to develop contextualised understanding. It does not prohibit numerical data; rather, numbers alone may be insufficient to explain what residents’ actions and reported views mean.

Housing illustration:
If the topic is “Why do some older residents resist relocation despite living in objectively smaller or older units?”, an idealist-oriented study would investigate attachment to place, neighbour networks, identity, memories, perceived safety, and the personal meaning of remaining—not only floor area, rent, or distance to services.

Realism: four main ideas

Realism is the ontological view that a reality exists independently of a particular researcher’s beliefs, perceptions, or language. In housing, properties, institutions, policy rules, prices, tenure arrangements, and material constraints do not disappear because an individual interprets them differently.

1.    An external housing reality exists.
Housing supply, dwelling size, rent levels, building conditions, mortgage rates, eligibility criteria, and waiting-list rules have effects whether or not a researcher or respondent personally approves of them. Realism therefore treats the social world as more than individual opinion.

2.    The real is not limited to what is directly observed.
A particularly valuable version for Housing Studies is critical realism. It distinguishes between observable events—for example, long waiting times or frequent moves—and deeper mechanisms or structures that may generate them, such as land policy, financing systems, welfare rules, labour-market insecurity, landlord practices, or institutional power. Housing research has specifically used critical realism to examine the relation between housing, home, and wider social structures.

3.    People’s interpretations matter, but they do not wholly create material conditions.
A tenant may perceive their flat as unaffordable, safe, or unsuitable; those perceptions are important data. Yet rent, building defects, household income, and tenancy conditions may also be independently verifiable and may constrain choices regardless of perception. A realist approach therefore examines both subjective accounts and the conditions that enable or limit them.

4.    The research task is explanation of causal processes and mechanisms.
Rather than stopping at an association—such as “low income correlates with overcrowding”—a realist asks: Through what mechanisms, in what settings, and for whom does this occur? It can use statistics, interviews, policy documents, historical analysis, and case comparison. Critical realism commonly values methodological pluralism and triangulation because no single source fully reveals complex social mechanisms.

Housing illustration:
For “Why is housing mobility low among low-income private renters?”, a realist study might combine tenancy records and survey evidence with interviews. It could examine mechanisms such as deposit requirements, insecure employment, limited affordable supply, discrimination, school-location needs, and information asymmetry—not merely report a correlation between income and moving.

Are they the same?

Idealism and interpretivism

No—although they are closely related.

• Idealism is mainly an ontological claim: social reality, or at least its social meaning, is dependent on consciousness, ideas, interpretation, and human meaning-making.
• Interpretivism is a broader research paradigm or approach: it seeks to understand the subjective meanings that social actors attach to their actions and circumstances.
• Because interpretivism generally assumes that meanings are socially constructed, it is often associated with idealist, relativist, constructionist, or subjectivist assumptions. But they are not interchangeable words. An interpretivist must still state their ontological and epistemological stance clearly rather than simply writing “this study uses interpretivism.”

A concise way to remember it is:

Idealism: reality/meaning is constituted through mind and social interpretation.
Interpretivism: investigate and interpret the meanings people give to their social world.

Realism and positivism

No—although classical positivism usually rests on a realist ontology.

• Realism is an ontological claim: objects, structures, and mechanisms exist independently of the individual knower.
• Positivism is a wider philosophy of research that emphasises observation, measurement, hypothesis testing, objectivity, explanation of causal relationships, and often prediction and generalisation.
• Classical positivism typically combines realism with an objectivist epistemology and deductive, often quantitative designs. Thus, realism can be one foundation of positivism.
• But realism is broader than positivism. Critical realism, for example, accepts an independent reality but argues that researchers’ knowledge of it is fallible, theory-laden, and often indirect. It also accepts that social structures and causal mechanisms may not be directly observable. Consequently, critical realists often combine qualitative and quantitative evidence rather than rely solely on positivist measurement.

A concise way to remember it is:

Realism: an independent world exists.
Positivism: use systematic observation and testing to develop objective, often generalisable, knowledge about that world.

Practical dissertation guidance

For a Housing Studies dissertation, avoid writing simplistic equivalences such as:

• “I use interviews; therefore my ontology is idealist.”
• “I use a survey; therefore I am positivist.”
• “Critical realism means I must use mixed methods.”

Instead, align the choices with the question:

If your main question is…	Plausible philosophical emphasis	Suitable evidence
“How do residents define a good home after relocation?”	Idealist / interpretivist	Semi-structured interviews, narratives, observation, thematic analysis
“What factors predict housing satisfaction across estates?”	Realist with positivist or post-positivist orientation	Survey, administrative data, regression or comparative statistical analysis
“Why do apparently similar households experience different housing outcomes?”	Critical realist	Interviews, policy and institutional documents, contextual statistics, comparative cases
“What policy intervention works to improve tenants’ outcomes, and how?”	Pragmatist or critical realist	Mixed methods, evaluation data, interviews, implementation evidence

A strong Housing Studies formulation might be:

“This study adopts a critical realist position. It assumes that housing institutions and material conditions exist independently of individual perceptions, while recognising that tenants interpret and respond to those conditions differently. The study therefore combines documentary analysis with semi-structured interviews to investigate the mechanisms shaping residents’ housing experiences.”

That statement makes a defensible distinction: housing structures are real; housing experiences are interpreted; the research investigates their relationship.